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Albert Camus

Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.

Friday, September 19, 2014

Guest Post: Rogue's Paradise (Covenant of Thorns #3) by Jeffe Kennedy

Published: September 8th, 2014

Description:

Pregnant, possessed, and in love with a man I don’t dare to trust-those are the consequences of the risks I took to save my life. But Faerie, the land of blood and magic, is filled with bitter ironies, and the bargains I made now threaten me and my unborn child.

The darkly sensual fae noble Rogue still tempts me to danger and desire. As we await the birth of our child, I’ve been forced to question whether our offspring is part of a bargain Rogue once made to save himself. He can’t tell me the truth due to a spell the vicious Queen Titania has him under. Would he betray our family against his will? Could I ever forgive him if he does?

Rogue insists on an eternal commitment from me, even as Titania’s forces close in on us. I don’t know if Rogue and I can withstand her onslaught, or that of the beast within me. But I will not stop looking for answers-even if it brings the walls of Faerie crashing down.

GUEST POST

Why the Fae and Fairy Tales Continue to Fascinate Us

I have an entire bookshelf dedicated to fairytales.

And those are just the ones I keep out for quick reference.

Some of them I’ve had since early childhood. Two were gifts from my mother when I was six and at least three more belonged to my grandparents and became mine when I first started reading. Others I’ve collected over the years. The older, the better. Particularly if I can find ones dating to pre-Christian influence. There’s the 150 year-old book of Omens & Superstitions I found in a bookstore in Inverness and the sleek modern compilation of Celtic Fairy Tales.

All of these have fed into my books. Most obviously, these books created the mental stew that produced the fae and Faerie of my Covenant of Thorns trilogy, which just culminated in Rogue’s Paradise. However, a review pointed out that the Tala of my Twelve Kingdoms series are “very clearly a version of the fae.” That took me by surprise because I hadn’t intended that consciously, but—upon reflection—I think that reader is absolutely correct about my secret realm of magic and shapeshifters.

So, why do the fae play such a huge role in my fantasy stories? And why do they continue to fascinate us in the 21st century?

I think there are a lot of reasons. I can blame the racial memory inherited, like the books themselves, from my Celtic ancestors. These tales form the bedrock of my genetic heritage as much as my fair skin and green eyes. Also, despite the near-magical technology that surrounds us, extends our lifespans and has allowed our world and even solar system to become smaller, the lure of the wilderness, the great dark unknown, remains. The fae are the shadows that inhabit the corners of our world and minds. They lurk in our subconscious, leaving trails of fairy dust and the certainty that, as much as science has revealed the workings of our reality, that something and someone remains unknowable.

Finally, I think the fae fascinate us because they represent that what cannot be controlled. Like coyote of Native American mythology or Loki of Norse mythology, the fae are the tricksters. They introduce chaos into a controlled system. They, like the vagaries of fate, turn plans upside down and send hapless humans down strange and bizarre paths.

Why do we secretly love this aspect, instead of hating it?

Because that’s where creativity and change come from. If all goes as planned, then nothing magical occurs. Nothing serendipitous. No necessity to be the mother of invention. Thor is boring without Loki to shake things up. There’s no story without Coyote stirring the pot. Without the fae, we never travel to Faerie and discover worlds within our own.

Jeffe Kennedy is an award-winning author with a writing career that spans decades. Her works include non-fiction, poetry, short fiction, and novels. She has been a Ucross Foundation Fellow, received the Wyoming Arts Council Fellowship for Poetry, and was awarded a Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Award. Her essays have appeared in many publications, including Redbook.

Her most recent works include a number of fiction series: the fantasy romance novels of A Covenant of Thorns; the contemporary BDSM novellas of the Facets of Passion, and an erotic contemporary serial novel, Master of the Opera, which released beginning January 2, 2014. A fourth series, the fantasy trilogy The Twelve Kingdoms, hit the shelves starting in May 2014 and a fifth, the highly anticipated erotic romance trilogy, Falling Under, will release starting in July.

She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with two Maine coon cats, plentiful free-range lizards and a very handsome Doctor of Oriental Medicine.

Jeffe can be found online at her website, every Sunday at the popular Word Whores blog, on Facebook, and pretty much constantly on Twitter. She is represented by Foreword Literary.